This essay will explore and critically assess the philosophical notions of formal and informal education. It will be shown that historically and politically formal education has been, and continues to be, tied to the notion of curriculum. It will be argued that curriculum work in formal educational settings has created methods which are discriminatory and oppressive in their conception, and importantly in the testing which is inextricably linked with curricular process. It will thus be shown that by design rather than inadvertent consequence of curricular development, formal education is a controlling mechanism reinforcing and reproducing oppressive social hegemony.